Watch Phoenix and Ezra Koenig perform ‘Tonight’ on ‘The Late Show’
In a recent performance, Phoenix performed their Ezra Koenig collaboration ‘Tonight’ on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.
Unfortunately, Koenig wasn’t there in person to play alongside the Parisian group, but they managed to synchronise the video for ‘Tonight’ with their performance. The new single was released earlier this month and marks the first time Phoenix have ever had a guest vocalist sing on one of their tracks.
The video for ‘Tonight’ was filmed in Tokyo and Paris with Koenig on the other side of the world to Phoenix. It’s a groovy, indie-pop duet that brings two giants of the scene together to tell a love story as old as time. On the track, Koenig sings: “I take all the blame, Is it hard to understand? When it’s all the same, I’ve played all the games, And lost almost everything, Now I talk to myself and it’s quite surprising.”
‘Tonight’ is taken from Phoenix’s self-produced new album, Alpha Zulu, which is released on November 4th through Loyaute/Glassnote Records. It was recorded in Paris’ Musée des Arts Décoratifs, which is situated within the Palais du Louvre.
In an interview with Pitchfork, Phoenix frontman Thomas Mars explained how the collaboration happened. “We have a whiteboard in the studio, and sometimes we put names to each part of a song,” he said. “And because a song is so fragile and vulnerable when we start working on it, these little names are really important. For example, if there’s a part that I name after [the Italian singer-songwriter Lucio] Battisti—’Oh, it’s the Battisti bridge’—I’m unconsciously convincing the other band members to love that part and keep it in the song.”
Mars continued: “So at some point I wrote on the whiteboard, like, “That’s the ‘Ezra’ part.” I was hearing his voice on the second verse. You get bored of your own voice, and this song was calling for a question-and-answer dynamic. We were friends already, so I just asked him.”
Watch the performance on The Late Show below.
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